Divine Wisdom

September 16^th, 2018                   “Divine Wisdom”                    Rev. Heather Jepsen

Mark 8:27-38 with Proverbs 1:20-38

         This morning we continue our readings in the Gospel of Mark.  As we have seen in our previous readings, the Jesus of Mark’s gospel is quick witted and doesn’t hesitate to say what he thinks or offer a difficult teaching.  This morning’s reading is no exception.

         Jesus has been busy teaching, healing, and generally mixing it up with Pharisees and the like and today he is on the road with his disciples to a prominent Roman city.  Jesus asks about what the word on the street is regarding him and in general the view seems to be that he is some sort of prophet brought back from the dead.  Peter though, has a different idea as he states that Jesus is the Messiah.

         One would imagine that this would be a time of great celebration but Jesus immediately rains on everyone’s parade as he starts talking about all the suffering that is on the horizon.  Yes, he may be the Messiah, but the Son of Man will have to undergo great suffering including rejection by the church, and death.  Peter is having none of this and tells Jesus so, only to get the biggest smackdown in Biblical history, “Get behind me Satan!”

         Jesus accuses Peter of setting his mind on human things and not divine things and then launches into a lecture about how everyone following him better be ready to be crucified because only those that are willing to die for the cause will gain their own lives.  And if anyone has a problem with this, well they can just “Get behind me Satan!”

         Many of us have heard this story hundreds of times before, so when we read this story in our modern context it can be really hard to get the original feeling of shock that the first hearers, or even Peter, would have felt.  At this point, 2000 years later, we all know that Jesus was the suffering Messiah.  Jesus came to die on the cross . . . yawn . . . I’ve heard that one before. 

We think we know what we are talking about when we talk about the Messiah.  But of course, Peter thought he knew what he was talking about when he was talking about the Messiah too.  How can we be so sure we aren’t making the same mistakes Peter did?  How can we know if we have set our minds on human things or divine things?  Do you catch my drift?  Peter thought he had the right answer, but he didn’t.  How can we be so sure that we have the right answer in our understanding of Jesus today??

         Peter was of course thinking about the traditional Messiah, the one who was to come and overthrow the Roman Empire.  This Messiah was supposed to save the Jewish nation, this Messiah was supposed to be a hero for the people; this is the Messiah the Jews are still waiting for.  Even after Jesus speaks about his upcoming death, more than once, his disciples are arguing about which seat they will get in his earthly kingdom.  They don’t understand this divine Messiah; they are too busy looking for the human Messiah.

         If we look at this text in a historical context, that might help us understand a bit of what is going on.  If Mark is an author writing at the earliest 30 years after Jesus death, then his community needs to make sense of this suffering.  It is highly likely that the disciples never expected Jesus to die, or expected him to immediately rise again in glory and conquer the Roman Empire.  So if it’s been 30 years since our hero died, then we need to reframe the story so that the dying was the point.  We need to tell a story where the hero knows that he is going to die and is prepared for it.  Then he can still be the hero.

         And so Jesus says he “must” undergo great suffering, he must be rejected, he must die, and he must rise again.  Now we are wading into the theological weeds and brambles as we get into atonement theory and debate all the different ways humans understand Jesus’ suffering.  Because we have to make meaning out of suffering, it’s what we do.  When we suffer, we always look for meaning, for purpose, in our pain.  So too, we must find meaning and purpose in Jesus’ suffering.  Like maybe he came and suffered on the cross to conquer Satan, or maybe he did it to pay a blood debt we owed to God, or maybe he did it to teach us what love is, or maybe he did it to bear the fullness of the human experience.  All of these are correct answers by the church’s thinking, and all of these are ways of finding meaning in the suffering of Christ on the cross.

         But what if that is setting our minds on human things and not divine things?  What if the divine wisdom is simply embracing suffering in and of itself?  Peter is thinking about the Messiah in human terms, as one who conquers suffering.  And when we break down our atonement theories, a lot of them would fit into that category.  Jesus is conquering something (like sin, Satan, or death) with his suffering.  But in our reading for today Jesus isn’t talking about conquering.  No, he is talking about the Messiah in divine terms, as one who embraces suffering.  We have nowhere to go with that, because we don’t like that.  But isn’t that what Jesus is saying “take up your cross and follow”.  Deny yourself, lose your life, take up the instrument of suffering, and follow.  It’s really hard to make sense of that.

         I know it may feel like I am taking you way down the rabbit hole today, this is definitely more of a theological than a pastoral sermon, but I just want to get us in a space where we begin to question our certainty.  Peter was certain he was right, and Jesus made it clear he was wrong.  We too, are in danger of making this mistake.  We too are in danger of setting our minds on human things and not divine things, of trusting in our own certainty when maybe we shouldn’t.  Maybe we should be leaving more space so we can learn new things from our God.

         In the reading that Henry shared this morning, the personification of Wisdom is found crying in the streets.  She laments that the people have chosen to wallow in ignorance and that they refuse to learn.  In the NRSV it says “How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?”  Wisdom suggests that she is available, she has tried to teach the people, but everyone has ignored her.  This text is nearly 3000 years old and yet it sounds like it could have been written yesterday.  Wisdom is ignored and people settle for lies and foolishness?  Fake news!

         In Proverbs lady Wisdom talks about the fear of the Lord as part of the basis for knowledge.  I have always struggled with that phrase because I don’t like the idea of fearing our God.  Respect yes, humbleness yes, bow-down yes, but fear always sounds bad to me, it’s off-putting.  I don’t want to be scared of God, although I am glad God has relaxed a bit from the Old Testament days when everyone that upset God needed to die by the sword!  I am scared of that God because that dude will strike you down!

         But if fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom then maybe it is about something else.  Maybe fear of the Lord is about giving up control and about admitting we might not understand.  I am thinking of those moments in my life where I brush up against a power greater than myself and realize that I don’t know everything and I am not in control.  That is a humility and reverence that I can relate to, knowing that God is greater than I, and knowing that I am wrong or confused.  Not in a sinful way, just in an uneducated way.  Like Peter being wrong about the Messiah.  The fear of the Lord, the willingness to step aside and let God take the lead, is the beginning of wisdom.  To admit that I don’t know everything, that is the beginning of wisdom.

         And so we are back to Jesus, asking us to let go of everything.  Jesus is asking us to let go of the wisdom we think we might have in order to better understand who he is and who he is calling us to be.  Jesus is asking us to let go of the lives the world is calling us to lead, in order to follow him into some other space where dying is living and losing is winning.  Jesus is asking us to trust him, to trust God, and to make space for the fear of the Lord in our lives, to make space for divine Wisdom.

         As you go out into the world this week I encourage you to look up, to pay attention, and to listen.  There is a lot of noise out there and as Eugene Peterson reminds us in his translation of Proverbs, there are a lot of idiots out there wallowing in their ignorance.  But Wisdom is out there too, calling us to follow her and to seek truth.  And Jesus reminds us that even if we don’t understand why the Messiah must suffer, we do understand our call to follow. 

May we be willing this morning to be corrected, to learn, and to embrace a fear of the Lord.  And may we follow the path of divine Wisdom, taking up our crosses, and embracing our suffering Messiah.  Maybe even embracing our own suffering along the way.  Amen. 

Nothing but Crumbs

September 9^th, 2018        “Nothing but Crumbs”     Rev. Heather Jepsen

Mark 7:24-37

         When I was first encountering Jesus and getting to know him as presented in the Scriptures I loved the Jesus of the Gospel of John.  In John’s Gospel Jesus is cosmic, he is powerful, he has secret knowledge, and he seems to glow with holiness.  The Jesus in the Gospel of John is like a super hero Jesus. 

         The longer I live in the world and the more time I spend working in ministry, the more I have fallen in love with the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark.  The Jesus in Mark’s Gospel is not a super hero, he is a real person.  The Jesus in the Gospel of Mark is someone I can relate to and someone I can believe in.

         Our reading picks up right where we left off last week.  Jesus has fed some people, and he has healed some people, and he has taught some people.  In last week’s reading, Jesus was mixing it up with the Pharisees and the disciples over issues of following the rules.  He made it clear that it doesn’t matter how many rules you follow, if you don’t have love in your heart then your religion is worth nothing.

         Now, Jesus is tired, and Mark tells us that he has gone away to hide.  He travels outside of Jewish territory into a predominantly Gentile region.  He enters a house and Mark makes it clear that Jesus did not want anybody to know he was there.  He is trying to hide, he is trying to rest, and he is trying to take a well-deserved break. 

         But, Jesus can’t get a break.  Just like last week when the Pharisees interrupted his snack with the disciples, this week he can’t get a moment alone.  A woman enters the house, asking him to do something.  One more person, with one more need, and she is a foreigner to boot. 

This woman throws herself at the feet of an overly tired Jesus and begs for the life of her daughter who seems to be possessed by a demon.  In a most un-Jesus-like fashion, he snaps at her saying “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  Whoa, sounds like Jesus could use a WWJD bracelet to remind him how to behave! 

         So what is happening here?  It should come as no surprise that throughout the centuries commentators have attempted to soften this image of Jesus.  Some scholars have said that Jesus was faking it.  He was just being inhospitable to try to throw the woman off and test her faith.  Others have said that Jesus was just joking.  Personally, I think there is no way around this one. Jesus was tired and cranky and he used a racial slur.  Dog was a common derogatory term used for those of Syrophoenician decent, and Jesus’ use of the word is no different than Trump’s when referring to Omarosa a few weeks ago.

         Jesus is caught here, and he shouldn’t have said what he said.  I think Jesus was suffering from physical and mental exhaustion, and he was just tired of seeing people.  I think he had had enough.  He was trying to get away, he was trying to take a break, he was trying to hide, and in comes one more person asking for one more thing.  Plus, this woman wasn’t even a Jew, Jesus had reached his limit and it shows in the things he said.  We talk about Jesus being fully human and fully divine, but as soon as his humanity shows we want to explain it away.  I think we need to embrace Jesus’ humanity, even when it was ugly.  Jesus was human and he was annoyed and he told her so.

         Surprisingly the woman is not fazed.  She snaps right back at him.  “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  Now I imagine Jesus sees her.  I think before, when she came in begging, she was just one more person asking for one more miracle, and he was too tired to deal with it.  But now, he looks up, and he really sees her.  He sees her wit, her faith, her determination, and her desire to have her daughter healed.  “For saying that, you may go – the demon has left your daughter” he says, granting her the miracle she requests.

         This is one of my favorite stories in all of the Scriptures.  I love this woman.  I love her wit, and her strength.  I love her determination, and her unwillingness to take “no” for an answer.  I love that she accepts this insult and turns it around.  I love that she talks back to Jesus.  And I love that she gets what she wants.  Jesus doesn’t say her faith is the cause of the healing, he says her wit is!  Here is an outspoken woman, being praised, and getting what she wants.  It may not be the world, it may not be the glories that God has reserved for the Jews, but it is enough for her.  She is happy to get nothing but crumbs, if that is all she is going to get.  Nothing but crumbs is a lot more than nothing at all.

         I also love Jesus in this story.  I love that he is real and human.  I love that he is in a place where I sometimes find myself; tired and worn, hoping that the phone won’t ring or the text won’t ping.  I find myself hoping for a quiet night at home, hoping for a chance to rest and recharge, hoping for some time with my family where I am not thinking about church, or thinking about the next big negative story in the news and how I am going to frame it in a sermon.  I love that Jesus says something he shouldn’t, because we all do that when we are tired and have had a long day.  I love a human Jesus because a human Jesus I can believe in.  Give me someone who is real and gets tired and I will follow them to the ends of the Earth.  I need a Jesus I can relate to, not one who is so holy he is beyond my imagination. 

         Just like the woman, at this point I think Jesus himself has nothing but crumbs.  There has been no break, there has been no chance of rest, there has been nothing for days but the throng of needy people, the scorn of the Pharisees, and the foolishness of the disciples.  I think he is suffering from compassion fatigue, a condition common among individuals who work with those who have suffered trauma conditions.  Compassion fatigue often manifests as a lessening of compassion over time.  I don’t think that is a stretch for the fully human Son of God, for surely being among humanity is to witness trauma a hundred fold.  Jesus is exhausted, he is running on empty, he has nothing crumbs.

         But his encounter with this woman opens Jesus back up again.  In his fatigue he had closed in on himself, he had pushed others away.  This woman’s interaction with Jesus has opened him anew to the possibilities of God’s power and grace in the world.  It is from this experience that Jesus will go on to open the ears of a man born deaf.  Jesus is more open and now he is more able to open others, though he continues to ask folks not to share the news about him.  People don’t seem to be able to help themselves though and word about him continues to spread.  No wonder the guy can’t get a break!

         I love this story of Jesus because we find ourselves here so often in our lives.  Sometimes we are the woman and we are so desperately in need.  Our hearts are broken by the suffering of a loved one and we ask for anything from God.  We will gladly take crumbs if crumbs are what are available.  In the midst of crisis, we know how to survive on nothing but crumbs.

         And sometimes we are like Jesus in this story.  We are so tired of giving and doing and sharing.  We just want to be left alone for one minute and then the nominating committee calls and asks us to be on a committee again.  Or it’s that one family member or friend that always needs help and always calls at the most inconvenient time and it is all we can do not to snap at them and tell them to go away.  Go away, we want to say, leave me alone.  All I have right now are crumbs.

         This is the point where God intervenes, and God challenges us to share our crumbs.  I think there is an abundance available to us if we are willing to share what little time and energy we have.  A few days before this story, Jesus was standing around with a crowd and the people were hungry.  5 loaves were broken and shared among thousands of people and 12 baskets of pieces were left over.  That’s 12 baskets of crumbs!  If another crowd had come upon them that day I am certain there would have been enough bread.  They could have survived easily, even though there was nothing but crumbs.

         God challenges us to dig even deeper than we thought possible and to share with others even when we feel like we hardly have anything to share.  When all it seems that we have is nothing but crumbs, if we are willing to share, then miraculously there will be enough.  Like Jesus, we have to be awakened to our capacity to keep going, keep giving, and keep sharing in the community of faith.  We have to let others open us up to God’s possibilities and then we can share that miracle of openness again with others.  We have to be vulnerable to receive, and Jesus was certainly vulnerable in this story. 

Don’t get me wrong, you need to rest and take care of yourself.  You can’t pour from an empty cup.  But sometimes, we find that even in the dregs there is a little bit left to share.  In this story Jesus is modeling self-care, as he takes a break from the crowds.  But he also models generosity as he gives a gift of healing even in the midst of his own fatigue.  Jesus shares his crumbs.

         Today we come to the communion table and this is a place where we embrace the crumbs.   Like the Syrophenician woman, we are outsiders to the love story that God was telling about the Jewish people.  We are not the ones that Jesus in the Gospel of Mark thought he was coming to minister to.  We are not the children who get the bread; rather we are those who wait for the crumbs to fall.  And fall they did, as through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the love story between God and the Jewish people became a love story between God and all of humanity.  We who were once outsiders, we who were once Gentiles, have now been grafted into this family tree.  And so we can gather at this table and celebrate with the bread of life.  Even if we only get a crumb, this meal is enough to sustain our faith.

         And so today we ask that God bless us this morning with the things that we need.  May we have the energy and faith to get through difficult and scary times.  And may we have the willingness to share what we have, even if we only have crumbs, with those around us.  May we experience abundance and generosity together, even if we have nothing but crumbs, being open to God’s miraculous and generous grace wherever we may find it.  Amen.

A Matter of the Heart

September 2^nd, 2018       “A Matter of the Heart”      Rev. Heather Jepsen

Mark 7:1-23 and James 1:17-27

         This morning we return to our study of the gospels with a reading from the Gospel of Mark.  We will be in Mark this whole month, and you will soon find that in the Gospel of Mark Jesus is quick as a whip.  Jesus is full of sharp retorts, on the spot Scripture quotes, and general quick wit with even a hint of a bad attitude.  This morning’s reading is no exception as Jesus mixes it up with the Pharisees and the disciples.

         Our lectionary would have us jump around and skip parts but I just hate that as we lose all context, so we are looking at all 23 verses today.  Jesus has been busy healing the masses and now the Pharisees approach while he and his disciples are enjoying a much deserved rest.  There was no time or space for ritual washing and everyone just grabbed a snack.  The Pharisees sense an opportunity for criticism and point out that JC and his followers aren’t doing things the way that they should.

         Ritual washing was important to the Pharisees and others as this was a way that you showed honor to God.  You took the time to wash properly and do things right as a way of marking who and whose you were.  Just like saying a prayer before dinner, washing your hands was an important part of the ritual, and Jesus and his gang had left that part out.

         Jesus isn’t in the mood to be trifled with (we will see that a lot in Mark’s gospel) and so he snaps back with a nasty bit of Scripture.  You guys are just like the folks Isaiah was complaining about, “This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrine.”  That ought to take them down a peg, as he basically calls them sinners and their religion a sham.

         He then offers an example by way of the tradition surrounding parents.  He says that the Pharisees abandon the commandment to honor father and mother by giving all their money that they should use to support their parents to the church instead.  The Pharisees benefit from offerings to the church and so this false charity is a way to ignore the commandment to honor their parents and to keep the money within their own circles.  By saying they are giving the money to the church; they are getting away with a sin of neglect. 

         Now it’s a teaching moment and Jesus calls everyone over.  “Nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”  The disciples nod their heads at this wisdom but the moment they have Jesus alone again they make it clear that they have no idea what he is talking about.  Doesn’t eating with dirty hands make you dirty???

         And so Jesus explains again, saying what we eat is only what we eat, no more and no less.  Mark claims that Jesus declares all foods clean here which the other gospel writers would certainly find to be a debatable point.  Jesus then gets to the real heart of the issue, literally.  It is what comes from the heart that makes us dirty, all our bad behavior, all our sinfulness, comes from within.  We could follow all the rules until the cows come home but if our hearts are rotten, so too will we be.

         At issue here of course is our love of religious rules and ritual purity over the actual substance of a heart that is in love with God.  One doesn’t have to look far to see this problem alive and well in our world today.  The Catholic Church has been all over the news these past few weeks for precisely this exact problem.  In their desire to pursue religious purity through requiring celibacy of their all-male clergy, they have prevented their leadership from knowing the value of healthy human familial relationships.  I just want to point out that this wouldn’t have happened if they had an all-female clergy!  Seriously though, the Catholic Church’s pursuit of purity over anything else has led to their downfall, as unhealthy expressions of sexuality continue and leadership allows it to go on.  The evil in their hearts and in their system of religious governance is now on full display and it is heartbreaking for everyone to watch.  And so we pray, for our Christian brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church.

         Our church too, needs to be wary of such sin.  We must be careful that our own sense of religiosity and self-righteousness don’t inadvertently separate us from God.  We need to be careful that the lives we live as individuals and as a community actually reflect the words that we preach, pray, and sing here each Sunday morning.  Our reading from James encourages us in this direction, reminding us to be doers of the word and not just those who claim to follow God.  Our lives should show the fruits of our labor in the faith and James would remind us that how we treat those in need is the true mark of what lies within our hearts.

         Of course there is a tension here between these two texts.  James encourages us to follow the laws of God in action and not just belief.  Weren’t the Pharisees doing just that?  They were following all the laws to a T and that is precisely the point where they clashed with Jesus.  So is it doing or is it believing that matters?  Is it the law and religious rules that save us or is it the stuff inside of us that saves us?  A healthy answer, I believe is that it is both. 

         Religious laws that are pure, like showing charity to the poor, worshipping and honoring our God, setting aside time for Sabbath rest, and honoring the stranger in our midst are what are necessary to live a life of faith.  On the other hand, Church rules about when and where we say what prayers, those are not that important.  But equally important to the pure religious law is the heart of the follower.  Do we follow the religious rules for a good life because we want to check all the boxes and save ourselves?  Or do we follow the rules because we want to follow our God?  See the difference?  A person who follows God’s law for their own selfish interest really isn’t following God’s law at all.  Only when our hearts first love God, above all else, will our religious devotion be pure and acceptable.

         I want to bring in another author here, a Pharisee, to help us understand.  In his letter to the church in Corinth Paul writes “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” 

         Paul reminds us that it doesn’t matter how perfect our lives are, it doesn’t matter how many rules we follow, and it doesn’t matter how much we sin or don’t sin; if we don’t have love in our hearts for God.   Without love, all of our good deeds, all of our following the rules, everything we do is worthless.  Jesus would respond to the Pharisees in today’s reading by saying, “It doesn’t matter how clean your hands are, if you don’t have love you are filthy.”  Clean hands are worthless without a pure heart.

         That is what Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees, the crowds, and those confused disciples.  Remember that quote he gives them from Isaiah?  “This people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”  Where are our hearts, far from God or closely connected with God? 

God desires our hearts, not our words.  God desires our hearts, not religious rule following.  Above all else, it is a matter of the heart.  What comes from our hearts, from the core of who we are, will reveal our love of God.  We will either have hearts of charity and love, or we will have hearts of greed and ugliness.  It is simply a matter of the heart.

         And so today I ask you to consider your own heart and what lies within it.  Are your good deeds motivated by a pure love of God, or are you simply following the rules in order to earn your ticket to heaven?  Only you can answer this question.  Paul would remind us that without love we are nothing.  James would tell us that without acts of love, our religion is worthless.  And Jesus would remind us that true faith is simply a matter of the heart.  So, what’s in your heart today?  Amen.